With the Fire on High(67)
“Emoni, I’ve been waiting a long time for you to be able to go out into the world and fly. Do you want to know where I go when I’m pretending to be at the doctor’s?”
I asked the one time and never asked again. ’Buela made it very clear it was none of my business. I don’t know if I should nod or shake my head so I just stand still. Oh God. Oh God. What if ’Buela is sick? What if she just wanted me all settled because she knew something was wrong? The wall behind me is the only reason I’m standing. I brace myself for her words.
“I go to the doctor so much because sometimes I need to get away from all of . . .” She swirls her hand in the air and “all of” must mean everything in the house. “I go to the doctor to remind myself I am more than a great-grandmother to a toddler, and a grandmother to a teen mother, and a mother to a rascal of a son.”
She clears her throat. “Okay. . . . The real reason I ‘go to the doctor’ so much is because of Joseph, Mr. Jagoda.” She doesn’t look at me when she says all this and I see a blush is climbing up her brown cheek. My grandmother is blushing like a girl with her first crush. “And he’s been courting me. You know he’s the office manager at his son’s doctor’s office and he’s nice to me and he took me to dinner at that fancy restaurant, and we get coffee on the weekends, and have been to a movie. He has his accent from Poland. And I have my Puerto Rican accent. We talk all the time and mostly we just sit silently. And that’s probably the nicest part. I haven’t sat quietly next to a man in a long time. I haven’t had someone who wasn’t depending on me to sew up the tears, a companion, in a long time. And nena, it’s . . .” She pats her chest, and I know just what she means. “He isn’t perfect! I mean, he’s a Giants fan, for God’s sake, but he makes me feel like a woman. Not only a mother so many times removed.”
I don’t know what to say to her. Her face has taken on a different look. Not so tight and pinched around the mouth; the wrinkles on her forehead have smoothed out and she drops the hand she was just swirling into the air right back onto her heart.
I sit on the couch next to her and then push my arms around her. “Oh, ’Buela. Thank goodness. I’m so glad you aren’t sick or, I don’t know, sitting on a park bench by yourself just to get away from us. And Mr. Jagoda? You’re right, he’s been so nice. I’m so glad you have someone.” I squeeze her tight.
Her voice is thick when she breaks the silence. “He asked me to move in with him. He wants to marry me. And of course, I would never leave you and Babygirl. I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. Pero, Emoni, sometimes it feels nice to dream.”
I don’t lift my hand to wipe my cheeks. “But ’Buela, if this is what you want, don’t you have to set a good example for me?”
She hiccups a laugh and pulls back from me. “I’ve taught you a lot, Emoni Santiago. And what I have been most proud of is what you learned about sacrifice and responsibilities. I can’t shirk mine, either.”
“’Buela, I don’t want you putting your life on hold for me.” I remove my arms fully from around her. “That’s my baby in there, you’ve done enough. Marry your Joe. We’re going to be just fine.”
Just Fine
I don’t know if we’re going to be fine at all, but I try to remind myself of Mercedes Sosa’s song: Everything changes. I’ll learn to be fine.
Before I go to bed I call Julio. I didn’t phone him once while I was in Spain and he didn’t call me, either. I wish he was a texter since that would be easier, but he has conspiracy theories about the government reading people’s texts.
“Emoni! Remember your viejo, finally?”
I hope he doesn’t hear my sigh. “Hey, Julio. How are you?”
I hear some rustling in the background and I know I must have interrupted his reading.
“Me, I’m always the same. How was Spain? Mami tells me you were living the good life out there in Europe.”
I tell him a little bit about the trip and the apprenticeship, leaving out the Columbus monument and all the golden structures. It’s too late to listen to a Julio Rant.
“Julio, I just wanted to let you know I got into college. Into Drexel here in the city. ’Buela is so excited she’s probably going to start putting up posters and I wanted you to find out from me before one of your block homies called.”
On the other end of the line there’s silence and for a second, I think the call dropped. “Julio?”
I hear what sounds like a sniffle but that can’t be true. My father didn’t cry when he lost his home in the last big hurricane. Didn’t cry when I stopped calling him Papi and started calling him by his first name. Doesn’t cry when he visits my mother’s tombstone.
But that’s definitely a sniffle. “I hope Mami does put up posters. You deserve it. You must be so happy.” But he must hear the hesitation in my voice because he questions, “Emoni? Is this not what you want?”
And the thing is, Julio is a lot of things. And I don’t always know if I can count on him. But I do know that he believes in self-education, and if I told him I didn’t want to go to school, that I thought going straight to work was a better idea, he would support me. Even if he had to argue with ’Buela to do it. But then I think about his sniffles.